


juno steel and the souls mark

by fangsy



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: (its injuries), Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Substance Abuse, general cws for abuse, ill add more tags as the time goes on, im just hurting my babies i think .
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27195662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangsy/pseuds/fangsy
Summary: “Little lady, you’ve gotta stop doin’ this! You’re gonna get yourself killed one day!” She had scolded him, wrapping bandages around his ripped to shit knuckles. “Be more careful next time, alright?”He tried to limit the amount of fistfights he got into after that.That didn’t stop him from going out and drinking himself sick most nights of the week, though. How else was he supposed to hold back the memories that threatened to overwhelm him at every twist and turn? With healthy coping mechanisms? Absolutely not.It had been a few years since then when Rex Glass waltzed into his life.-a soulmate au in which juno is in denial and peter is a hopeless romantic because i live for that stupid shit. its gonna be a long one so bear with me
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay, Peter Nureyev & Jet Sikuliaq, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	juno steel and the souls mark

**JUNO**

The first memory of the marks landed somewhere in early childhood. He was living in Oldtown with Sarah and Benzaiten, and a hand-shaped bruise appeared around his wrist, followed by a sharp flash of pain. He dropped his fork on the ground in shock, and Sarah had shouted at him for that, until she saw the dark outlines of fingers. Her face softened slightly, in a way that only came about when he or Benten were hurt. She picked up the fork for him, washed it off, got him a bag of frozen peas from the freezer to put over the bruise. She seemed so excited about it, and Juno couldn’t understand why. Having an injury appear out of nowhere in such a way had been startling, and unpleasant. 

“Little monster, do you know what this means?” She had asked him, her voice low and almost vibrating with excitement. She let out one of her rare laughs when Juno shook his head, still pressing the bag of peas against the sore spot. It hurt more than it helped, and Juno could feel every last pea straining against the thin plastic casing. “It means that you have a soulmate. Not everyone has one, Juno, you’re one of the lucky ones.”   
  
He didn’t like that the pain meant that he was lucky. He was seven or eight at the time, and they hadn’t talked about soulmates at school yet. The bruise faded within a few hours, along with the pain. But the memory, that white-hot flash of fear he felt that he was sure wasn’t his, remained.

The next mark didn’t come quickly, but itappeared just as jarringly as the first. A flash of heat, followed by some blood soaking through Juno’s shirtsleeve. He had been sent to the nurse at school, and when he asked where Juno had gotten it, he didn’t know how to respond.

“It just showed up!” Juno insisted. “I don’t know how, or why, but it did!”   
  
That mark left a thin scar, barely visible against Juno’s dark skin.

And as he got older, the bruises and cuts came more and more frequently. It got to the point that no one seemed to question when he would come to school, looking as though he had been beaten to hell and back, grumpy and tired. He didn’t feel lucky, even as his mother insisted that he was. Soulmates were rare, she would say, you should feel blessed. You should be more grateful. And when he complained again, she’d knock him about the ears.

He took to wearing long sleeves, high collars. Not wanting to show the marks that covered him regularly. It was rare, thankfully, that he would wake up to a flash of pain and fear on his face. He had gotten very good at covering up bruises with makeup. Better to not be ostracized for something he couldn’t control.

Juno remembered the first time he was sure he gave his soulmate a mark. He was eleven, maybe twelve, and had gotten into a fight with some kids much larger than he was. The split across his nose had required stitches, the bruises didn’t leave for weeks. His eyebrow had fared a bit better- no stitches, just a few butterfly bandages and he was all set. Sarah had assumed, at first, that they were from his soulmate- until the school called, telling her about his suspension for fighting.

She gave his soulmate a few more marks that night, if memory served. 

But he was mostly grown now, and he didn’t like to think about his past at the best of times. So instead, Juno sat in a run-down bar, hand clutched loosely around a near-empty glass. A few people had approached him already, flirting and making a show of looking him over. He didn’t acknowledge them, and eventually they all lost interest.

His body was sore when he got to his apartment that night. That day at the force had been brutal, and the stiffness in his aching joints said as much. He didn’t figure that it would be much better in the morning. He sat heavily, flicking through the channels aimlessly, eyes glazed as he searched for something to watch until he could fall asleep.

The first indicator that this injury was worse than the others was the lack of pain, if only for a moment. Juno didn’t know what had woken him until the pain hit. It felt like a hole had been punched through his gut, no blood leaking from the cauterized laser wound. With trembling hands, he lifted up his rumpled undershirt, seeing a hole in the bottom left of his gut. It hadn’t hit anything vital, it seemed, but it hurt like hell. Terror reached through him and clamped around his stomach at the realization that this hadn’t happened to him- his soulmate was in danger. 

But what could he do about it? It’s not like he knew who they were, or where they might be. All he could do was sit there, pain throbbing out from the epicenter of the pain, stuck on the couch until the feelings subsided. It didn’t take long, surprisingly, for the pain to go away. Maybe a little too quickly. But Juno couldn’t bring himself to care. Instead, he hobbled into his unfortunately bare kitchen, reaching for one of the bottles he kept there and taking a long swig. And then another, and another, until all the emotions that swirled around inside of him slipped down like the burn of the whiskey, settling him into a warm, comfortable numbness. 

***   
  
So, the police force didn’t pan out. Juno figured after the third finger was broken by one of his coworkers that he should try a different career. Nothing too extravagant- a private investigator. At least then he wouldn’t have to worry about being shot in the back by his coworkers constantly. And, by some stroke of luck, he got a secretary who didn’t loathe him within the first ten minutes of meeting him. Her name was Rita, she was loud and brazen, and honestly? Juno was glad to have her around. She brightened up any space she walked into- not including the ways she made herself physically sparkle. How she managed to make a sweater full of bright ass sparkles that she could turn on and off at will was beyond him. 

But she also brightened the office, and even if it annoyed him to no end that she watched her streams constantly while there, she made it better. She kept his spirits up when he was in a rut. She actually made him take care of himself, and that was a feat no one had accomplished since Benzaiten. She made him want to get out of bed in the morning and not immediately drink. She was wonderful, and Juno loved her to pieces.

She even patched him up after one of the many, many fights that he managed to get himself into.

“Little lady, you’ve gotta stop doin’ this! You’re gonna get yourself killed one day!” She had scolded him, wrapping bandages around his ripped up knuckles. “Be more careful next time, alright?”   
  
He tried to limit the amount of fistfights he got into after that.

That didn’t stop him from going out and drinking himself sick most nights of the week, though. How else was he supposed to hold back the memories that threatened to overwhelm him at every twist and turn? With healthy coping mechanisms? Absolutely not. 

A few years after that, Rex Glass waltzed into his life.

**PETER**

A pang of hunger shot through his stomach as he eyed the cooling loaves of bread on the windowsill. He wasn’t sure of the last time that he ate, but it was long enough that the hollowness had become something of a comfort. Tiny hands reached up, grasping as best as they could at one of the morsels of food. A hand shot out from the open window, tugging him upwards until his thin, frail little body was within eyesight. The man looked him over, frowned, and for some unknown reason, pulled him into the house through that window.

Peter shivered with fear at the tall man, who stood there with his arms crossed and a displeased look on his face. He couldn’t help but notice the bruise that lingered around his wrist, too. Suddenly, the man’s face split into a wide grin, and he gave what Peter could only describe as a guffaw.

“You’ve got promise, kiddo!” The man said brightly, crouching down to Peter’s level and ruffling his greasy hair. “You’ve got thieves’ hands. If I hadn’t been keepin’ an eye on those, you’d have gotten off without a scratch. Hell, you probably would have gotten away anyways if you had been a little bit faster,” His eyes were bright and warm, and they made the little boy feel a safety that he hadn’t felt in some time. “My name’s Mag. I’d guess by the state of you that you don’t have anywhere to go?”   
  
He shook his head, pulling his lower lip to nibble on it nervously. Mag gave another smile, moving from a squat to the floor, “Well, you’re stayin’ with me now, alright, kid? I’ll take care of you. Maybe, together, we can make you into a real good thief, hmm?”

So the young man took to living with Mag, learning how to pickpocket. His pseudo father figure set up a mannequin with a coat that had bells stitched along the inside, and made Peter try again and again until he could get a wallet without making a single bell make a sound. He was a quick learner, and Mag liked that. 

The first time that Mag gave him a bit of praise was about two years into living with him. “Y’know, Pete, you’re really good at this for a little kid! I think that you can try it on an actual person, now,” When Peter showed hesitation towards the idea, Mag just smacked his back heartily and laughed again. “C’mon, Pete! You’ll be fine, I’ll be right there.”

He was not fine. The person he chose pulled a knife on him for trying to brush against them, and they got a nice slash on his shoulder before Mag was able to pull him out. He couldn’t help crying- he was young, and it had hurt, and it was scary. But Mag was safe, right? Mag would keep him safe.

It wasn’t for a few more years until he got his first mark. And what a surprise it was, suddenly having a black eye and a split-open nose that went away within a day. Mag knew, somewhat, what the hell was going on, so he told Peter what he could and left the boy to do some more research all on his own. And research Peter did- it was bordering on obsession, he learned everything that there was to learn about soulmates. And how to find them.

He couldn’t wait to meet them. He had read that soulmates were drawn to one another, something about the matching chemistry that caused the strange injury translations to begin with. So, he knew, deep down, that he would meet them someday. He thought about them all of the time, frequently daydreaming when he was supposed to be listening to Mag. That earned him a few bruises, but no matter. 

Most often, his daydreams were of what they would look like. At one moment, a fair-skinned girl, with long hair and longer legs. At the next, a lovely, dark-skinned lady, with scars coating him and short, cropped down hair. He would be happy with whatever he got, he decided after the third round of daydreams within a few minutes. 

He couldn’t find it in him to mind the flashes of pain- he was regularly bruised and battered anyways, so it wasn’t any different from his usual aches and pains. He was just glad that he had a soulmate. It seemed so very romantic to him, having someone that he could truly call his own. 

And as he grew, and as he got more marks, he treasured each one. Every bruise, every jagged-edged cut. He treasured them, wrote down when and where he received them, how he thought his soulmate got injured. Clearly, they had a dangerous job. That, or their home life was incredibly bad. Maybe it was a mixture of both, he pondered.

But no matter. It was easy to keep a log of the marks, to write down the where and when and the feelings that he got from it. More often than not, those feelings were just… tired. Broken down, and so, so exhausted. It often made Peter yawn, too, placing a long-fingered hand over his parted lips. 

Months passed. A few more marks, here and there. It seemed as though his soulmate was finally staying out of trouble, and at 19, he was out on a job. It had been a couple of years since he left Brahma, striking out on his own, giving himself a new name and a new identity as often or as little as he wished. But the job was going south, and quickly. He wasn’t exceptional with close combat- he was a burglar, not an assassin. A thief that did his absolute best not to hurt those he was stealing from. So when the laser pierced through him, he didn’t quite notice it at first. That is, until the shock faded, and the pain slammed through him. A cry of pain ripped from his throat, and he did his best to make his escape from the job, holding back tears with all the strength he had left.

He was lucky, Jet had told him, that it didn’t hit anything vital. It still took some stitches to pull the cauterized skin back together, and the scar that was left was incredibly strange looking. Sometimes, on long nights, he would sit down and absently run a fingertip around it. A small reminder of what he had survived.

***   
  
Years passed. Peter Nureyev grew from an awkward yet strangely suave teen into a bright, charismatic master thief, renowned for the crimes he committed even if those crimes weren’t tied to a specific name. The confusion and praise that followed every big heist were enough for him. He didn’t need the infamy, didn’t want it, either. So, instead, he followed the news. Took more jobs that would land him on the front page.

He always did have a flare for the dramatic.

And then another job came in. Something about a mask, in Hyperion City on Mars. He accepted- somehow, he had never been to Mars before. He had heard plenty about the city itself- in a way, it was infamous in a similar way to him. High crime rate, exceptional amounts of political corruption. At least it wouldn’t be too difficult to get the mask out in such a place, where crimes like his ran hot and heavy.

Infiltrating Dark Matters was another deal. With some help from Jet, he did manage it. Agent Rex Glass, he called himself. He quite loved the name, the way it rolled off of the tongue. So when he finally,  _ finally  _ got to meet the person he was working with- ‘Juno Steel’, the file had said- he dressed up. Put on a bright shimmer of makeup, dark red lips. All ways to draw the gorgeous lady into him, and away from his hands. 

Charming the secretary was easy. All it took was a few compliments, and she was putty in his hands. And she let him into the office, where- he had a wonderful view of Juno’s ass. He was half hanging out the window, drawing a startled laugh from Peter. This seemed the beginning of a wonderful- if temporary- partnership. 


End file.
